Evansville council shifts grant money away from food bank

The Tri-State Food Bank will have thousands of dollars less than it expected to spend next year for a program that sends needy schoolchildren home for the weekend with a backpack full of food.

The Evansville City Council voted 6-3 Monday to reduce the amount of federal grants to be distributed to the food bank's backpack program in 2011 by $2,458. The change means the organization will have $22,542 to spend that year, instead of the $25,000 recommended by an independent commission.

The Tri-State Food Bank, a nonprofit that distributes food to other charities in 33 nearby counties, started the backpack program to ensure needy children have something to eat on weekends. The program sends qualified children home Friday evenings with enough food for two breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks.

Council President B.J. Watts, who motioned for the reduction, was quick to point out that his proposal still gives the Tri-State Food Bank in 2011 more than twice what it has to spend for the same purpose this year. The food bank received $7,500 in federal grants in 2010 for the backpack program.

The money included in the reduction was transferred to the Carver Community Organization, which also has programs aimed at helping youth.

Councilwoman Wendy Bredhold, D-3rd Ward, voted against the reduction, saying the needs of Vanderburgh County schoolchildren have only grown in a year that saw the shuttering of the local Whirlpool factory, which employed 1,100 people until recently.

"When you have something happen like the closing of a major employer in the past year, then you need to put things in place that address hunger," she said after the council meeting.

The other two council members who voted against the reduction, Dan McGinn, R-1st Ward, and Dan Adams, D-at large, expressed similar concerns. They also complained that they had too little time to review the proposed changes, which were presented for the first time Monday night.

Watts said he resents the implication that he lacks sympathy for schoolchildren. He noted that he is a teacher at Evans Middle School, where many students are in a free-and-reduced-lunch program.

"For them to play politics with an issue like this is sickening," he said after the meeting. "This is the most absurd thing I've heard in my life."

Mary Blair, executive director of the Food Bank, said that even with the reduction the food bank will have more than twice as much to spend on the backpack program when compared with what it had this year. Still, the demand for the service has been great and she was not certain $25,000 will be enough to meet it.

"There are so many children out there that can truly benefit from this weekend backpack program," she said.

Blair had fewer objections to a separate reduction made to the federal grants the Tri-State Food Bank was to receive for general expenses. That amount was brought down to $44,000, which is what the organization received this year for the same purpose.

Councilwoman Connie Robinson, D-4th Ward, proposed that reduction and several others, freeing $15,000 in grant money. That amount was transferred to Counseling for Change Inc., another nonprofit.

Robinson said the changes she proposed will cause no organization to receive less grant money in 2011 than it did this year.